Many of the funds will be used for soft-power initiatives to cultivate “pro-Japan” foreigners, such as supporting Japan studies at universities and setting up “Japan House” centers to promote the “Japan Brand.”

A push by Japan to correct perceived bias in accounts of the country's wartime past is creating a row that risks muddling the positive message in a mammoth public relations campaign to win friends abroad.

Japan will open the way to channel aid to foreign militaries under a new charter for overseas development assistance, as the nation seeks to bolster regional security ties amid a territorial dispute with China. The Development Cooperation Charter will allow Japan to provide overseas aid for non-combat purposes, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. 

The issue of the so-called comfort women needs to be resolved for South Korea-Japan ties to improve, according to activists and the Korean women who were enslaved by the Japanese during World War II. 

The brutal slaying of the two Japanese hostages by the Islamic State (Daesh) is a reminder, if one were needed, that the group remains impervious to universal condemnation of its methods, but also that Japan's ability to influence the group's actions is as limited as that of any other nation.

 When Islamic State militants posted a video over the weekend showing the grisly killing of a Japanese journalist, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reacted with outrage, promising “to make the terrorists pay the price.”Such vows of retribution may be common in the West when leaders face extremist violence, but they have been unheard of in confrontation-averse Japan — until now.. 

She carries the spirit of her son, a soft power presence in peaceful principles and humanistic values that Japan needs now. The mother of Kenji Goto, who painfully appeared before the press a week ago pleading for her son's life, was met with a throng of cameras on Sunday in Tokyo to make a statement about his death.